


Pursuit of Happiness

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Series: Valentine's Kisses 2019 [8]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Boys Are Dumb, M/M, Well-intentioned Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 20:38:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: Daichi noticed a shift in Suga's behavior, just as Hajime noticed one in Tooru's. They started out to find answers alone, but they ended up finding one together.





	Pursuit of Happiness

Something strange was definitely going on with Suga.

Daichi didn’t have any proof, so to speak, but in the strange days following Karasuno’s exit from the Interhigh tournament, it had been difficult not to notice that his best friend and co-captain was not behaving in a usual manner. Not bad, but different.

At first, he chalked it up to the existential crisis every third year high school student had while being dosed with a cocktail of parental expectation, exam pressure, homework, and looking for colleges. Hanging on to the burden, however welcome, of continuing with volleyball hadn’t made that easier on any one of them.

Yet as the weeks drawled on in the summer heat, Suga’s behavior persisted. More often than not, he would slip out after practice as soon as he could rather than take the leisurely stroll home with Daichi that he usually did.

He wasn’t the only one to notice, either.

“Is Suga okay?” Asahi whispered as they headed home after a particularly long and sweaty practice.

Daichi shrugged. “Wish I knew. He’s been like this for a couple of months, and whatever it is, he isn’t talking to me about it.”

Asahi frowned. “Maybe homework is getting to him.” Then he paled. “What if he’s tied up with the mob somehow, and he has to do jobs for them to keep them from breaking his kneecaps or something.” Shuddering, his fingers clenched around the strap of his duffel bag.

“Bold of you to assume the yakuza could defeat Suga,” Daichi teased, but for the lack of other evidence, even that absurd thought didn’t quite banish itself immediately.

However, after a stretch this long with Suga constantly leaving them all in the dark, enough was enough.

“I’ll figure it out,” Daichi stated, taking a resolute breath to make him look more confident than he really was. “If Suga needs help, I’ll find whatever it is he needs and get it for him. It’s the least I can do after all he’s done for me.”

A smile teased on Asahi’s lips. “You mean listening to you go on about how you have a crush on Yui and you think she has one on you, too, but you’re also ninety percent sure you’re wrong so you don’t do anything but stew about it?” Daichi swatted his arm. “Yeah, you definitely owe Suga for listening to all that with a straight face.”

“Zip it, Sasquatch.” Daichi stuck out his tongue, hoping Asahi didn’t notice that he threw a big fat bullseye. “I’ll keep you apprised.”

“Let me know if you need help.” Asahi branched off to head down his own street and tossed a wave over his shoulder.

Daichi finished the short walk to his own house deep in thought, and absolutely no one was around (he hoped) to see him trip over the curb for his trouble.

Yes, he was going to solve the Suga mystery, one way or another.

 

🔪 🔪 🔪

 

Even for Tooru, this was a whole new level of strange.

For the second full week in a row, Hajime noticed Tooru skipping out on extra practice in favor of fleeing the school grounds to go . . . somewhere. He never said where he was going, let alone that he was leaving, but time after time, Hajime looked over his shoulder and found an Oikawa-shaped vapor trail where his friend and captain was standing only minutes before.

But when Tooru canceled their movie night without telling him about it, something he always gave Hajime shit about if he missed it, Hajime’s last shred of patience expired on the spot. Whatever bizarre phase Tooru was going through, he was going to figure it out one way or another.

“Hey, Makki.” Hajime poked his head over his teammate’s shoulder as he peeled off what had to be illegally bad smelling socks after practice. “Did you see where Oikawa went?”

“I was gonna ask you.” Makki stuffed his gear into his duffel and tossed it over his shoulder. “We were supposed to work on a new quick attack today, but he bailed. He never does that.”

Hajime nodded. “Yeah, he did that to me yesterday with movie night.”

Makki’s eyes widened. “You serious? Usually he can’t shut the hell up about movie night because you let him pick his trashy fantasy space opera crap.”

“Kiss my ass,” Hajime snapped even while he smiled. “Well, at least he’s not avoiding me, which would be weird as hell. I’m usually trying to figure out how to get him to shut up.”

With a sigh, he shook his head. “I’ll see what I can get out of him later. His dad is barbecuing tonight, and my folks and I are going to hang out there. He wouldn’t dare bail on his parents.”

Makki gave Hajime a half-shrug. “A month ago, I would’ve said he wouldn’t dare bail on you, yet here we are.”

“You’re telling me.” Hajime drifted out of the locker room, more than a little bit troubled by his friend’s behavior.

An hour later, he and his parents were at the Oikawas’ door, and Tooru answered like there was nothing amiss. Hajime watched him like a hawk, but all through dinner, he was a perfect host. No drink was empty for long, no seconds gone unoffered.

Hajime was a breath away from giving up on busting Tooru in the act when it finally happened. Once their parents were halfway through their second bottle of sake, he spied Tooru slipping out of the garden gate and take off toward the nearby bus stop.

As fast of a runner as Hajime was, he couldn’t make up for Tooru’s head start. By the time he caught up, Tooru was boarding the bus and the doors closing behind him. Hajime didn’t have his bus pass or cash on him, so he couldn’t follow.

Instead, he stared after the bus and scowled at Tooru as he sped off. Hajime’s fists balled at his sides. Yeah, he was going to figure this out and possibly twist Tooru into a human pretzel for making him worry so much.

 

🔪 🔪 🔪

 

Enough was enough, Daichi thought as he sped through changing after practice. Suga already had a head start and was just slinging his bag over his shoulder and heading for the club room exit.

Next to him, Asahi murmured, “I’ll drop your bag off at your house. Take your phone and keys and go.”

“Thanks, man,” Daichi grunted as he jammed his feet into his shoes. “I’ll keep you posted.”

With that, Daichi slipped out of the room and followed Suga at just enough distance to camouflage himself but not lose track of his quarry. Suga boarded a bus headed for the south end of the city, and Daichi followed. While Suga was heading for his usual spot in the back, Daichi dove into the first available seat, earning him a scowl from an old man who pointed at the handicap symbol over the seat.

“Sorry!” Daichi hissed, his face red. “I’ll move. I promise.” And once his surreptitious glances down the aisle showed that Suga was already slumped into his seat and fiddling with his phone, Daichi did just that.

The stop where Suga departed was one Daichi had never visited before, but he recognized the street name from the bus route brochure he kept stashed in his bag. Asahi was always nervous they would get off at the wrong stop and get lost, no matter how many times they got off at the same one.

Ducking behind shrubs and mail boxes and fence posts, Daichi trailed Suga, who was humming a jaunty tune while he speed-walked down the street. He followed Suga to a tiny ramen place nestled in the middle of a fairly nice neighborhood.

“Gotcha,” Daichi muttered. He peered around the edge of a window to see Suga sit at a table with someone who was facing the other way. Suga’s mystery guest had medium brown hair that was either artfully tousled or just plain messy, and Daichi couldn’t tell from this distance.

Daichi ignored the curious stares from passers-by as he spied on what had to be some sort of dinner date. The two of them were sharing a giant bowl of noodles, and Suga beamed at his tablemate more than once. That was a full, toothy smile that would make anyone feel lighter than air when hit with it on full blast.

Something else caught his eye, however. Through the far windows of the restaurant opposite Daichi’s position, he spied another onlooker gazing intently at the duo. The expression on his face probably mirrored Daichi’s own, which was a mixture of bald curiosity with a sprinkling of irritation.

Whoever was sitting with Suga, this other guy had a stake in it, too. A startlingly familiar other guy, at that.

As Daichi scoured his brain to place where he had seen that face before, someone tapped on his shoulder. Whipping his head around, Daichi’s eyes grew round and his jaw dropped when the person he had noticed spying on the couple was standing right behind him, arms crossed and expression stormy. It was then that Daichi finally placed the face in his memory.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Iwaizumi Hajime growled, looming over Daichi as he crouched in the bushes surrounding the restaurant.

 

🔪 🔪 🔪

 

Hajime didn’t know what to expect when he tailed Tooru after his abrupt escape from practice, but running into Karasuno’s captain was certainly not on the list of possibilities. “You know you look like a pervert, hiding like that, right?”

Daichi’s face turned a deep shade of red, and he averted his eyes. “It’s not like that.”

“Oh?” Hajime harrumphed. “I know why _I’m_ here. What I don’t know is why you’re spying on someone in there like some nasty gremlin first year trying to get a peek in the girls’ showers.”

Shooting to his feet, Daichi squared himself against Iwaizumi, who had a few centimeters on him but Daichi wasn’t about to let him have the advantage because of it. “How about you mind your own damn business, Iwaizumi.”

Hajime’s mouth curved into a feral grin. “Oh, so that’s how it is? What, did your girlfriend dump you for Oikawa? While there’s no accounting for taste, if this is how you behave, Sawamura, I’m not surprised she kicked you to the curb.”

“Hey, that is not —” Daichi’s face contorted with a myriad of expressions, with the final one settling on what Hajime would coin as an advanced form of shock. “Oh my god.”

Brow knit in confusion, Hajime hissed, “What? What’s going on?”

However, Daichi only threw his head back and laughed until tears streamed down his face. Once he caught his breath and dashed the moisture from his cheeks, he caught sight of Hajime’s bewilderment and started all over again.

Hajime waited impatiently for Daichi to find his chill and tell him what the hell it was that he noticed. After an irritating five minutes, he finally got his wish.

“You’re here following Oikawa, right?” Hajime nodded. “Well, I’m here following Suga. He’s been acting weird lately and isn’t talking about it, so I decided to find out for myself what the hell is going on.” He chuckled. “I can safely say I never saw this coming.”

Mind spinning with a flurry of similarities between his own goals and Daichi’s, Hajime felt his neurons latch onto connection after connection. He could vaguely place a face with this ‘Suga’, who Oikawa termed as ‘Mr. Refreshing’ while reviewing Karasuno’s match footage. The crown of silver-blond hair sticking up from the top of the booth bench the two of them occupied certainly matched the description.

“Oh, dude.” Hajime closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. “How did I not see this coming? The last time he was this whacked out, he and his girlfriend were still in the honeymoon phase.” Scratching his temple, Hajime huffed. “Didn’t even know he was into dudes.”

Daichi pursed his lips. “So, uh, what do we do about this?”

“Do?” Hajime shrugged. “What exactly are we supposed to _do_? They look —” He pressed his face to the glass, taking in the sight of both of them laughing and grinning at each other, and murmured, “Happy.”

“Yeah.” Daichi nodded and slumped against the warm bricks of the building’s exterior. “They really do.”

Hajime leaned next to Daichi and chortled. “Was Mr. Refreshing acting weird as hell?” At Daichi’s blank stare, Hajime supplied, “Your Suga-kun.”

Daichi hummed. “At first I thought he was mad at me. Then a friend of ours was worried he was mixed up with the mob.” Hajime blinked at that wild leap, and Daichi snorted. “Yeah, that was about the same reaction I had. I just needed to make sure he was okay, you know?”

“Yeah, same.” Hajime watched Daichi’s face pinch. “What?”

He cleared his throat. “It, uh, goes without saying that if Suga gets hurt, I will have to rip Oikawa’s limbs off, right?”

“Just like it goes without saying that sentiment works both ways.” Daichi bristled at his retort, and Hajime squared himself up against Daichi once again.

A _psst_ from his left startled him out of his showdown with Daichi. The two of them turned to face whoever had interrupted them, and Hajime blanched when both Tooru and Suga were standing shoulder to shoulder, staring (in Tooru’s case, glaring) them down. “Crap.”

Hajime watched in morbid fascination as Suga walked up to Daichi and flicked him in the forehead. “Stop following me. You’re bad at it.” He bit back a snicker when he noticed that Tooru was bracing to do a lot more than a flick.

“Rude, Iwa-chan!” Tooru’s pout made his face look like a duck’s, and Hajime couldn’t keep himself from laughing. “Mannerless brute,” Tooru grumbled.

Daichi held up his hands in surrender. “Truce! We were both just worried about our best friends, so maybe we could, er, overlook you finding us lurking in the bushes.”

Suga’s annoyance melted when Daichi gave him a sheepish smile, and he relented. “Oh, all right. But knock it off, okay?”

“Consider it done,” Daichi agreed, and Hajime wanted to kick something because he could never wrangle Tooru in five minutes or less. He knew his path to forgiveness would be much longer and obnoxious.

“I think we can call it a day,” Suga suggested, pinning Tooru with a sharp glance when he started to argue. “We agreed we were going to tell them. Now is as good a time as any.”

Tooru blew a stray lock of hair from his forehead and groaned. “Right as usual, Suga-chan.”

“Of course I am.” Suga leaned in to snare a kiss from Tooru that even stole Hajime’s breath.

Suga waved as he latched his arm with Daichi’s and led him off toward the other end of town. That left Hajime, Tooru, and a bucket full of questions. “So, um, when were you planning on telling me you were a) dating, b) dating a guy, and c) dating a guy from a rival team?”

Sighing, Tooru drooped his forehead on Hajime’s shoulder. His prickly demeanor from earlier melted away. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Iwa-chan. I wanted to but, I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“Freak me out?” Hajime grabbed Tooru by the shoulders and shook him until his head bobbed back and forth. “Use that big brain of yours. What would freak me out more, my best friend finding someone he really likes or my best friend ducking out of stuff without any reasons whatsoever while I was hoping like hell that you weren’t pissed off at me for something?”

Tooru averted his eyes. “It sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

“Well, if it walks like an idiot and talks like an idiot . . .” Tooru tried and failed to give him a reassuring smile. “Oh, come here, you ridiculous jackass.” Hajime’s arms banded around Tooru’s chest, and he could feel Tooru’s heartbeat calm itself through his own skin. “As if I could get rid of you that easy. Give me more credit than that, dude.”

Returning Hajime’s embrace, Tooru sighed heavily. “Thanks for looking out for me, Iwa-chan.”

“You got it.” Hajime threw an arm over Tooru’s shoulder and nudged him in the direction of home. “Now, tell me about your Suga-kun.”

Until they reached his front doorstep, Tooru prattled on about everything there ever was to know about Sugawara Koushi. Most of it, Hajime forgot as soon as he heard it. What he did learn in this time, however, was that when Tooru had That Glow. Not just junk food and good movie glow, but the kind where his entire being was in alignment or the universe or some other damn thing like that.

Hajime usually saw it emerge during an intense volleyball match, but he spied it at a ramen shop in the hotter-than-the-devil’s-asscrack summer heat that day.

He wondered if Daichi had a similar experience walking home with Suga, but he pushed that thought aside. Anyone who _didn’t_ glow up around his best friend would be blind and also stupid. Suga didn’t seem like either of these things.

At Tooru’s door, Hajime sent him off with a grin and orders to communicate before bailing on plans. As he strolled down the sidewalk to his own house, Hajime found himself humming a mindlessly chipper tune. Maybe he was a hopeless romantic, after all.


End file.
